Where We've Been
by oranges-and-leather-boots
Summary: Damon and vampireJeremy have been together for half a century, but when Damon loses him because of Jeremy's maker, he's going to have to go through hell to get him back. Then again, maybe hell is the world without Jeremy. This would be SLASH.


**Note: dedicated to Green Eyed Cat because she sent me so sodding many Daremy fics that I had no choice. She forced my hand. Also to my darling girl, who sort of appeared in my mind so I...made her into a 19th century...vampire...socialite? It was done out of love. Don't ask further.  
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**so, I thought of this story about half an hour ago. It's probably going to be chaptered epicly, but I got this far and realized that it was looking damn good as its own little story, so here it is as a (currently) stand-alone vignette that will become the prologue to my Daremy epicness. Damn good-look, it's three o'clock in the morning here, give me break. I'm allowed to be delusional if I want to. I'll take a look at this in the...morning...and then I'll see everything that's horrible about it.**

**Warning:...yet again, I have upped the rating by swearing myself in this note. Why do I keep doing that? The rest is clean. Well.**

**It's DAMON, people. So...morally grimy, but not actually filthy in any way you can put your finger on. For the moment.  
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He could still remember the night they had met, as clearly as yesterday—which sounded like emotional drivel but wasn't, because he had learned his memories were like that, ever since he had turned. It was only the force of that particular memory that made it stand out, or rather the force of the sheer personality of the central figure. He had known, since the first moment he set eyes on the tall figure beside the ballroom windows, that the person there was someone it would be worthwhile to get to know.

The young man had been talking to an older one, leaning down a little to accommodate his companion's stature, which was rather as wide as it was tall. The white-haired man said something, loud and blustery, that made him straighten with laughing. And as he had, soft brown eyes had lifted, and met Damon's gaze over the distance.

And Damon had very much liked those eyes. They were cool, and certainly a little aloof, but it was the kind that mingled with genuine amusement rather than his own more caustic brand. And when they paused to meet his the affect was like alcohol, cool and clean, and like a dare; a challenge, or a push, to do something those eyes would find amusing.

Or maybe about half of that was the punch Damon swirled around in his glass.

The young man had gone back to talking, and he had turned to look out at the green mountains, already on the surface thinking of other things. But somewhere in the back of his mind an expectation sat, waiting. He didn't need to be told, or be close enough to smell, when the round military man and the younger both moved like vampires. He would meet them properly, after the ball, when Lena finally gathered up her real friends to converse with before their leaving. And if not then—well, friends of Lean's would pass his way again; there were only so many vampires in America, after all, and passing acquaintances would always show up again when they hunted in the same circles.

That had been in 1897. And he had spoken to the Colonel later—a disturbingly intelligent man for his looks, which consisted mostly of white mustache—and nodded politely to his friend, perhaps exchanged a few meaningless niceties. The thin young man had been laughing fondly at the Colonel's comments to Lena's other guests, and Damon had considered for a moment the sensation of looking in on something sweet and shared that he did not know enough about to understand. It had struck him to wonder at those two, and whether one had made the other; Jeremy had looked neat enough in his tailored clothes to have been military once, a soldier perhaps, which would have linked them. But then the air of almost parental fondness suggested the other way around. He had learned, later, that they had met years after each had been turned.

He had seen Jeremy occasionally after that, and they had nodded as casual acquaintances, and made sure to keep out of the others way when they hunted at the same parties. He learned nothing to make him care much about the other man, but over the years he stayed in the Carolinas he grew fonder in Damon's mind simply by being a familiar face when their kind gathered.

And then there had happened to be a ball—yet another of Lena's, and he told himself he only kept attending hers because they were as close as the woman could make them to a vampire buffet—where Whitman was his usual idiotic, showoff self and ruined Damon's chances of attracting a meal's attention himself. Well, not ruined, but certainly ruined his chance of doing it subtly. So he retired to the wall, and found Jeremy soon in the same position, with a look of sheer disgust as he watched Whitman flirting that made Damon laugh. They had talked, and ended up side by side most of the evening, and when Jeremy plucked up both their glasses, Damon hadn't bothered not to turn on the charm just a little when he walked back with two full ones in hand. And Jeremy certainly hadn't turned down the offer.

Later, out in the garden-where the woman had actually strung tiny lanterns for a worryingly faerie-like effect—he remembered feeling surprised by how genuinely honored he felt, at being granted the opportunity to touch the young man's smooth, pale face, and kiss him hard, and feeling warm hands pressed to his hips. From the very first touch, Damon remembered, he had felt that odd sensation of not deserving what he had—not deserving anything so _good_. And it hadn't gone away, not after days, or months, or long, long years: the feeling that something was screaming in his gut that Jeremy, who he barely knew, was precious.

It was the first thing he felt every morning, and the last when he went to sleep. And in every moment that followed those, when Jeremy would wake after him—or Jeremy at least would call it waking—and pull him muzzily back into his arms to be a vampire pillow, Damon would give in, and take the chance to pet the hair that was irritatingly high above him most of the day, it would occur to him that whatever cosmic mistake had been made, no one up there was going to be allowed to fix it.

Ownership is nine-tenths of the law, and the last part is being selfish. And he was very good at doing that.

**...**

**I don't actually ask for reviews often (cause I forget) but I'd love some on here, because the real plot that takes off from here will be very different, and I have a pretty clear idea, but I'd love to know what sort of things from this people might like to see later. Or from your own crazy minds: I'm not picky when I'm begging.  
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